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Search continues for missing Farmington man

Search crews are back at work today looking for Andrew Lindberg, the Farmington man whose plane disappeared Friday night.

According to several media reports Lindberg was flying from Lakeville's Air Lake Airport to Hallock Friday but his plane never arrived.

Volunteers from the Civil Air Patrol, law enforcement officers along Lindberg's route and the Minnesota State Patrol have been helping in the search. Maj. Al Pabon, the CAP's national public affairs officer, said about 100 CAP members helped with the search Sunday and at least 60 were helping early Monday morning.

The CAP was notified Saturday that Lindberg's plane was overdue at its destination. Overcast conditions kept search planes out of the air for much of the day but sunnier skies late in the day and on Sunday allowed plans to participate in the search.

According to CAP 1st Lt. George Supan the group had searched 2,000 square miles as of Monday morning.

"We're doing a very systematic search between Hallock and Wadena," Pabon said. "We're searching every little bit of that airspace to see if anything's going on with that aircraft."

Searchers have been looking for an emergency transponder signal or for evidence of the plane on the ground.

CAP members also checked with airfields along Lindberg's route to see if he had landed somewhere unexpectedly and been unable to communicate with family.

"It's been very steady," Pabon said of the search. "We've got crews out today. We're really pushing this hard because it's day three now."

Lindberg reportedly left Lakeville around 5:30 p.m. Friday to go hunting in northern Minnesota. A family member got a text message from him around 6:30 p.m. That message was relayed through a cell phone tower near Staples, so that area has become a point of reference for the search. The focus on Monday was a path between St. Cloud and Fosston, Supan said.